Does the coast between northern Fla., SC have a lower risk of getting hit by a hurricane? (2024)

The myth has been talked about for years: The "golden cusp" — that bend of the Southeast coast from northern Florida to lower South Carolina that rarely takes a direct hit from a landfall hurricane.

There's some validity to the notion, despite the recent swats from a number of storms that grazed the sector that includes all of coastal Georgia.

The cusp, or crescent moon shape of the coast there, and the tendency of storms to curve to the north do give the region some protection, although it's generally acknowledged that the Charleston area is the upper lip of it.

But don't take that one to the bank.

"The portion of the coast from northern Florida to southern South Carolina is at lower risk of a direct hit from the ocean by a hurricane since the coast is concave and does not stick out," said meteorologist Jeff Masters with the private forecasting company Weather Underground.

"Conversely, the southern tip of Florida and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, are at higher risk since they stick out," he said.

Charleston-based meteorologist Shea Gibson calls it "bending the risk factor" to decide you're safe based on statistics alone.

"Hurricane Matthew raked up that stretch of coast just a couple years back, and there is not enough evidence to really lean into saying that it is 'less likely,' " Gibson said. "It really depends on which way the system is coming from and what the steering mechanisms are at that time."

Meteorologist Bob Henson of Weather Underground concurs.

"When you have a concave coast directly facing a common hurricane trajectory, such as the Texas coast, the concavity doesn't affect the risk of a hit," he said. "If anything, it can exacerbate the storm surge threat, depending on the specifics of the undersea and overland topography."

Hurricane Matthew in 2016 headed for landfall in Georgia before scraping up the coast as far as North Carolina. Hurricane Irma in 2017 also was on a track that included potential landfall on the Southeast as a devastating storm.

The golden cusp myth pervades among retirement boosters and business speculators. Earlier this year, 55places.com, an online index of adult communities in the United States, advertised Savannah as a preferred coastal retirement community because landfalling hurricanes are "extremely rare," despite the area getting raked by Matthew two years earlier.

In 2002, while competing with Charleston to lure a huge DaimlerChrysler automobile plant, Jacksonville, Fla., officials repeatedly brought up that the city had not been hit by a landfall hurricane since the 1800s, calling it the safest port city in the East.

At the time, it had been 13 years since a powerful hurricane struck Charleston.

Hurricane Jeanne made landfall just south of Jacksonville two years later, in 2004, with 120 mph winds.

When it comes to safety, the bottom line is to nottrust the statistics.

"I would advise to prepare each year as if you may sustain a direct hit from a major hurricane," Gibson said. "It only takes one to forever change your perspective. We learned that from Hugo."

Hurricane Hugo was the catastrophic storm that came directly in and tore through Charleston with 135 mph winds — in 1989, 30 years ago this year.

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